Board, game, and media: Interactive board games as multimedia convergence

Interactive media board games reflect a changing media culture. Converging media text and technology with game play mechanics and rules, these board games exist as a hybrid form of game and media. In this article, I examine interactive paratextual board games - games based on media products that utilize other forms of media to produce random or immersive experiences. While previous discussions of media franchising investigates game paratexts through industrial and economic shifts, I explicate aesthetic, ludic, and textual concerns of cult franchises through an analysis of three interactive board games, namely, Isaac Asimov's Robot VCR Mystery Game, the Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive VCR Board Game, and the Indiana Jones DVD Adventure Game. Ultimately, I argue that these interactive paratextual board games manifest, reflect, and augment early convergence culture characteristics, revealing that interactive board games exemplify contemporary new media characteristics.